This BEAM is an ispection of my Personal Twitter Trends from the beginning of my Twitter life, until now.

My twitter birth was in 2009 or 2010. My infancy was in 2011. But I exploded with activity that year. So, I grew up fast in Twitterdom.

In the beginning of 2012, I did a review of my twitter habits and intentions. It had already become a huge part of my life; so I felt it necessary to review what I had learned and where I was going. This article is built on looking at my personal perspective of this social media platform today and into the future.

You have heard of the midnight rider. In the beginning, I was the midnight BEAMER. It was not that I had insomnia. I had great peace as a general rule. I just didn’t seem to need as much sleep then. So in the beginning of this experiment; I used nights to read, write and pray…. I was an odd hour tweeter and blogger. I did not see this changing in the future but there has definitely been an evolution in this habit. I am now much more regulated into daylight hours for my social media pursuits. But in the beginning, I was:

NOT AS MUCH ANYMORE

I knew from the beginning of my social media life that I was a Strange Duck. One way this is true, is that I talk a lot about prayer. Because I pray a lot. A whole lot. – – – That has not changed nor will it; but I do not seem to write publicly about it, as much these days. Still, I am definitely a messenger God uses and this will continue as I feel directed. Business directions included, I will keep my focus on being a ministering agent for My Higher Power personally and in my social media communications.

Prayer is a huge part of my life.

I have never been shy to discuss such things as my prayer life on social media. This has had such a positive and huge impact on my life privately that I felt it important to share it with others publicly. Why? Because I care and want to make a difference. I care about God and helping others 365/7/24. This will never change.

Another one of my peculiarities that I chose to make public from the very beginning of my social medial life was “being rough around the edges.” Steve Gutzler @SteveGutzler called me “Slam” in college, because of my explosive tendencies. This seemed a good way to explain some of my attributes, so I capitalized on this name early, in my online communications.

I did not mean for this to be a “branding” strategy in the beginning but it has definitely turned into one today. Some things never change. I live up to my name “Slam”, still today. Karate teacher, previous preacher, recovery speaker, writer, outdoorsman. outspoken sales pro and in many other very lively, outgoing and demonstrative ways, I live up to this nickname. After all, even the blog you are reading is: Guts is the key!

As many of you may have sensed; I am not a half-hearted person. When I do something, I really go for it, as a general rule. So, when I decided in September of 2011 to build a BEAM {blog}; I did just that. By February of 2012, I had constructed 100 BEAMS (posts), wrote at least 100,000 words and attracted a little over 1,000 viewers and developed 1,000 Twitter followers. Yes, I was busy. Maybe too busy. So I took a break to evaluate. I was not sure at that time, I would even continue an active online presence.

But obviously I have continued. In the beginning, My BEAM topics were God, sales, karate, people with courage, my sister and creative word games. Through the course of my practice, I learned to integrate visual interest, photographs, an outline, tags, timeline and other vital components to make gutsisthekey more reader friendly. I tweeted about all of these articles and developed many twitter relationships. At that early stage, twitter was more social than anything else. This is where my twitter usage was born.

I really had not thought about business purposes too intensely.That has changed now. In the beginning, my blog and twitter were both experiments. I believed God wanted me to do them. I wanted to do them. So I did. It became obvious quickly that these experiments yielded favorable results.

Still, It is hard to correctly harvest social media results, without analysis. Analysis that I could not at that time do, while I was busy doing the work. That is why I decided to take a break in 2012, to learn and digest what I had done on Twitter, my blogsite and my online presence overall.

This is really taking a break! LOL

This break produced interesting results. It was an intelligent move I thought, I knew my friend Steve Gutzler @SteveGutzler unplugged at on Sunday’s. (That is what he called disengaging from social media). My friend Lora Rossi @thehugginghome seemed to periodically back away from it, to refresh her mind from time to time. I thought I might need to employ an unplugged strategy from time to time, to keep social media from becoming an unproductive time waster.

Though “Slam” I am still today. I have seasoned, matured and slowed down with age. (I am 55). In light of this, my social media activities are more measured. They are no longer an experiment that I may or may not continue. Twitter and GutsIsTheKey fits my life now and I will continue them. My twitter trends and blogging direction is not a curiosity anymore but a definite direction. I am clear about what I do and why I do it, for the most part.

I no longer have a 100 articles. I have nearly 300. I no longer have a thousand followers. I have 12,000 plus (none purchased). Therefore, with the growth I have tried and used certain utilities to help me manage my online presence. Some have worked. Others have not. So this learning curve, experience and practice with utilities continues. However, I have intentionally steered more toward personal communications than scripted, timized ones;…. at least for the time being.. Most of the time, when you see a tweet from me. I personally posted it at the time you see it.

Having developed over 2,000 sales tips; I do re-use versions of these tweets often. The content is good, my own and bears repeating. I have developed a habit of filing most of my twitter sales training under the hashtag #salescategory. This is pretty original with me and a way that someone can go with a click and find a very complete listing of my sales related thoughts.

Another personal twitter trend is to use certain lists. There are individuals I have come to know online and want to keep up with and this is a quick way to reverence their activities.

I have come to know that my Maker wants me to keep up with certain people. There are ones I learn from. There are ones I teach. There are ones that I feel a kinship with. Just as in the beginning of my twitter experience, I still try to keep first things first and be lead by my Divine Master in what I do on twitter.

So here are some clarifications about where I see my Twitter direction heading currently.

At one time Twitter was only for fun.. I made no money from it. So, the point was to love God, help others and enjoy the experience. Today, my twitter stream has much more professional direction. While my overall motives are the same.

However, I am still in the process of growing my Twitter influence and blog site. Both now reflect personal and professional interests. I desperately need to redo my professional speaker’s site: http://www.timgcarter.com. I expect to do this in the near future. That is why you do not see more currently about it in my stream. I consider it to be antequated.

Regarding: Follow-backs,I do not automatically follow. I “generally follow” unless: a- I suspect dirty or foul mouthed content. b- You are obviously an autobot that I do not see the specific benefit of following c- I will not follow you, if you seem only to exist to promote some product that I am not especially excited about. d- I will not follow you, if you spread pornography or spam. e- and if your profile only mentions how many followers you will get me, I will not follow you.

My BEAMS & this Twitter thing are definitely a work in progress; so be aware that my efforts are tendered with a disclaimer that I am likely to change with time, as I learn more and see more.

One thing I definitely want to achieve is a more content driven Twitter stream. I do not want you to have to read through lengthy lists of promoted names and mindless social networking jibberish to get to the point of what I am trying to say in my Twitter Stream. I am going to work on making my stream VERY content driven.

Since I am clearly guided by God in my life; I want my Twitter Stream and gutsisthekey BEAMsite to reflect this in their composition and thoughtfulness. I will make mistakes. But with God’s help I will fix them, as possible.

I can’t help it. I love a lot of you guys. {Don’t want to help it either.} I have found a richness of relationship in my Twitter friends that I never knew was possible in social networking. This has been very fulfilling and rewarding. Many of you I have never met in person and miles separate us but yet, we are very genuinely close. As far as I am concerned; we are as close as neighbors next door. Nope, CLOSER than that some times. Some day, I hope to meet many of you if God or business allows our paths to cross.

SALES is definitely an ONGOING TOPIC for me. I am a powerful public speaker. I am an experienced sales trainer with a diverse and multi-faceted background. It only makes sense for me to continue to grow and contribute in this area. Here are some ways I will do it. 1) Original, daily sales related Tweets. 2) Daily RT Promo of Sales Professionals that I respect. 3) Periodic BEAMS of high professional value and content in gutsisthekey

GOD IS REAL. Sometimes, I get the strong impression that He has a message that He wants to birth through me, for some of you. You will see definite segments in my Twitter stream, where I am “on a roll,” with a spiritual topic. When God’s Spirit is burning in me; I must obey and bring His message. This will continue. I will continue to tweet original thoughts about God. I belong to Him; so I must talk about Him.

I do intend to continue to achieve a better balance in my life and the effect of this will be felt in my Twitter Stream. I teach Shotokan karate and this powerful influence helps me stay on track in many areas. I have not decided how much I will “Tweet” about karate. But it will certainly influence what I do, even if I don’t tell you about it. Karate, Hmmm. It is Very important to me and a definite way I help others locally but not so sure Twitter is a good forum for this…… But then again…. So, jury is till out.

Being an author has become a huge interest. Since starting my twitter stream, I have co-authored 1 book, am due to co-author another later this year. AND Am Coming Out With My First Solo book next month. My Twitter stream will definitely reflect these interests as an author.. This has been a part of my life that has emerged greatly because of my twitter activity and will certainly be reflected in my twitter activity.

Klout is out!!! Waste of time, I have concluded. The +K feature seemed to be a simple way I could encourage others & be encouraged. I experienced too many frustrations with this, to continue. It is no longer a part of my Twitter life. I do not recommend it. // Kred seems ok and has a value to me.

Oh, about Steve Gutzler. We are two warriors who became friends many years ago. I believe he is a really special human being and I am committed to being his ally, long-term. You will sense that for sure in my Twitter stream.

I rarely #FF anymore, unless I really want to shout out someone special. This is a part of me trying to keep my stream content driven.

Please do not get offended. I am not going to RT your #FF list & their #FF list and so on, except on rare occassions. I have too much original content I want to produce and I do not want the followers if the only way I can get them is to make my Tweets a list of names.

DM’s... I hate non-personal DM’s.. If I send you a DM; it is something just for you, straight from me and I am likely to write you in your stream to tell you it is there. I no longer check DM’s. So write me in my stream to tell me, if you have sent me a personal message by DM.

FaceBook is generally for close friends for me; mainly people I already know in person. However, If I get to know you on Twitter or want to know you better; I may follow you on FaceBook but only if I think we would mutually benefit from getting to know each other better, as closer friends.

In conclusion, I recently I had a conversation with one of my twitter friends that is really in line with what I mean by making your twitter communications content driven.

@Melanie_Canada · said to me on Oct 1 – Hello my friend…how come I can’t find our #Twitter friends?Did they all drop off?This new culture is different than the oldies

@CCCDynaPro · I replied on Oct 2 1- Mel, I think you are right the twitter culture has changed somewhat ..
2- Its almost like anyone that uses Twitter for business purposes is afraid to be personal and communicate here anymore.
3- I am a strange duck & what you see is what you get. Slam is my nickname so integrating it into a marketing image is intentional.
4- It allows me to be who I want to me and still consistently build a marketing image at the same time.
5 – I keep a list of people I have communicated with on a deeper that surface level & try to stay in touch from time to time
6- I like to keep my friends, personally and professionally… Glad you are one of them sister… Bless you a bunch… Slam

@Melanie_Canada then went on to say to me: There is a way to be professional, personal& not over-share,I do it and if one doesn’t like my opinion then we are not a good match

To which, I replied: I Love this dialogue and the purpose of it.
1- Yes, I say out loud that we have to maintain our business and reputation.
2- Still-it is worthy of note that many use “social media” for just social purpose & have very few business concerns in SM.
3- I know the wave of branding thing hit me and it seemed that I was being forced n2 a position inconsistent with who I am.
4-Until I discovered-My “brand” must B so consistently “me” that it served deep business & personal interests at same time.
5- When I started tweeting-I had no business interests here-Now I do & growing-But I am still able 2B the same guy 🙂 #Slam
6-One huge difference that “having a business reputation 2 maintain” has caused on twitter is a necessity 2B content driven!
7-Even dialogues like this one a) I use as basis for articles b) think about value 2 readers & of course our relationship 🙂

Melanie then said “Since I’ve been back on twitter I find more tweeps machines than actual humans acting, thinking & doing..great way to delegate . The Best strategy for good team building is to have everybody local get together for more cohesion but if your team is scattered,send reminders

Furthermore she said of her heart motives behind her twitter and social media direction. Do you want a cup of great information that endlessly flows with content? A #leader needs to fill up on inspiration always,mind,body,spirit… to have a cup of great information that is endlessly flows with content is to be at a good place always, mind,body,spirit #joy … To have a proper balance of work,needs,personal tweets or interest, which will cause you to tweet always from the heart; from a cup that endlessly flows.

Wow. This is a great way to end. I love twitter streams that indicate a heart connectedness to their direction. I engage people who have very specialized tweeting directions. Tweeters who structure their communications as toasts. Tweeters who theme all of their tweets around a certain ideology or flavor. . Tweeters who stylize all their tweets to reflect certain information and knowledge types, market niches, personality niches, musical flavor, artistic styling and directed to certain activity groups. // I find staying connected with these very specifically directed twitter streams, to be a pretty cool way to stay in touch with how to accomplish my own twitter aims…

Yes, I utilize twitter for Branding. Yes, I utilize twitter for Socializing. And Yes, I utilize twitter for Business reputation. I do all three. And why shouldn’t I? After all, “Slam” I am… 🙂

Tim’s ideas are dynamite in person! Hire him as a speaker, at 336-688-7538.